Rome hosts successful annual meeting for Italian-French Film Industry Collaboration

Following the success of the Parisian event De Rome à Paris-Italian Screens last January, which featured professional meetings between Italian and French producers, distributors, and sellers, Rome has once again proven to be the ideal stage for further strengthening the important and fruitful collaboration between CNC (Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée) and Unifrance with DGCA-MiC (Direzione Generale per il Cinema e l’Audiovisivo del Ministero della Cultura) and Cinecittà, along with the Istitut français Italia and the French Embassy in Italy. This partnership reflects the excellent state of co-productions between France and Italy, with the year 2024 shaping up to be full of new developments.

Recently, the annual roundtable among industry professionals took place at the French Embassy in Italy during the fourteenth edition of the French cinema showcase Rendez-Vous. This closed-door event, organized in synergy by Unifrance, the French Embassy, and Cinecittà for DGCA-MiC, saw Italian and French audiovisual professionals exchanging data and information, delving into measures and tools adopted by the two countries, investigating critical issues, and devising common strategies.

At the start of the discussions, Martin Briens, the French Ambassador to Italy, welcomed the guests, emphasizing the decades-long partnership between France and Italy in terms of production. In 2023, out of 144 international co-productions realized in France, 27 were with Italy. He highlighted examples such as Linda veut du poulet! by Sébastien Laudenbach and Chiara Malta, celebrated at the César Awards after their victory at Annecy last June, and Il sol dell’avvenire by Nanni Moretti. He underscored how these meetings help maintain co-productions at a very high level, with ambitious projects built on shared narratives and the desire of France and Italy to reach a common audience.

Alongside him, Daniela Elstner, General Director of Unifrance, and Roberto Stabile, Head of Special Projects at DGCA of MiC at Cinecittà, introduced their respective delegations and announced upcoming events.

Roberto Stabile highlighted how this event follows a long tradition of collaboration between France and Italy, reflecting a moment of great institutional collaboration. The DGCA of MiC is working in coordination with CNC and Unifrance to develop co-productions and increase the distribution of Italian films in France, with a programmatic continuity that spans from Rome to Paris, from Cannes to Venice, aiming to facilitate opportunities for professionals from both countries to meet and exchange ideas throughout the year.

Daniela Elstner also noted that Italy is the fourth largest market worldwide for French cinema in 2023 (first in 2018 and 2019) and the second in terms of international co-productions. She mentioned recent eclectic successes of French cinema in Italy and highlighted the strong French presence at Rome’s Festa del Cinema and Venice Film Festival, as well as in numerous other festivals in the country. She also emphasized the strong ties with Cinecittà, with which collaborations have multiplied in the last 5 years.

This year, the topics discussed ranged from policies and strategies for the revival of cinemas to distribution methods, from production for platforms to the qualitative improvement of co-productions between Italy and France. The event falls within the framework of increasingly close collaborations between the institutions of the two countries, aimed at promoting exchanges among audiovisual professionals and the development of common policies. The high number of French-Italian co-productions and the shared strategies initiated by the participants further evidenced the close relationship between France and Italy.